A MOTHER has spoken of her devastation after an operation to end her son’s suffering and allow him to be a “normal little boy” was cancelled for a second time in a matter of months.

Sharon Lemonheigh said her son, Alwyn, who celebrated his eighth birthday on Sunday, had been born with club foot, a disorder which causes the feet to appear twisted at the ankles.

She said: “My son is in agony every day. He has muscle spasms in his legs and he struggles to walk.

“But he’s such a happy-go-lucky kid, he never complains. You never hear a bad word from him.”

Alwyn was due to have an operation at Royal Glamorgan Hospital last August, but the surgery was cancelled and rescheduled for May 2 at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff.

Last week, however, the family was told the operation had been cancelled again – this time due to a lack of beds.

“We couldn’t believe it when they told us the operation had been cancelled again,” said Sharon, a single mother who works as a full-time carer for her son.

“I feel like my son has been completely neglected.”

Alwyn goes to Llanhari Primary School in Pontyclun and has to be supervised in the playground by his teachers.

“If he decided to get out of his wheelchair and run around with the other children, he would risk breaking his legs,” said Sharon.

“He just wants to be a normal little boy. We are hoping the operation will help him to walk and at least stop him from being in so much pain.”

The family was due to go on holiday to Spain in August, but Sharon is worried she will have to cancel the break and disappoint her daughter Leanne, nine, and eldest son Byron, 12. “We have never had a family holiday because of Alwyn’s condition,” she said.

“If the operation had taken place as planned, Alwyn would have had time to recover and we would all have had something to look forward to. I had to call off our holiday when his operation was cancelled last summer and I can’t afford to throw the money away again.

“We just want to have fun together as a family.”

Ian Morris, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board’s divisional manager for surgery, said he was not able to comment on specific cases due to strict rules on confidentiality.

He said: “The health board helps thousands of people each year by providing excellent surgical care for a wide variety of conditions, including some of the most specialist procedures in Wales.

“Unfortunately, on occasion this high demand and the need to prioritise the most urgent cases can mean that we have to delay some patients’ surgery where it is safe to do so.

“In these instances we offer our apologies to those involved and do our utmost to make sure that they are seen as soon as possible and receive the high standard of care and treatment we aim to give all patients.”